Public Employee Press

Local 983 Park Enforcement Patrol Officers
Arbitrator stops out-of-title barricade work

An impartial arbitrator in the Office of Collective Bargaining sided with Local 983 in April and ordered the Parks Dept. to stop using PEP Officers to move barricades in Hudson River Park.

"We fought long and hard and now that we finally have a favorable decision on this out-of-title grievance, we're very happy," said Local 983 President Joe Puleo, who represents Parks Enforcement Patrol Officers.

What started as a one-time favor turned into an eight-year ordeal for PEP Officers on the overnight shift at Hudson River Park. Management ordered them to move heavy steel barricades to block entry each night and in the morning to reopen Hudson River Park, which runs seven miles from Chambers to 59th Street in Midtown.

The heavy lifting took PEP Officers away from their regular law enforcement duties. Local 983 filed the grievance that DC 37 lawyer Aaron Amaral defended.

"Forcing the PEP Officers at Hudson River Park to engage in extensive labor on a nightly basis, represented a departure from the rest of the Parks Department where the City Park Workers and Associate Park Service Workers within the Maintenance and Operations Unit have always handled the mass set-up and take down of these heavy steel barricades," said Amaral.

"Management did not give us any protection like braces for our backs. In the cold, the rain, during blackouts and Hurricane Sandy, we lifted 150 50-pound barricades and locked them in place night and day," said Tiffany D'Aquilla, a former Hudson Park PEP Officer whose testimony was crucial to the union's case.

"Civil servants could transfer," D'Aquilla said. She eventually did. "But if you were provisional and didn't have 18 months, you moved the barriers or quit. If you refused, you got written up," for insubordination.

Blue Collar Council Rep Bob Gervasi testified that, "DPR always assigned the job of moving barricades to City Parks Workers and Associate Parks Service Workers." But in no other city parks, he said, were PEP Officers regularly moving barricades.

Moving barricades is not in the scope of PEP Officers' job description. The heavy lifting took a toll: 18 PEP Officers were injured on the job and forced onto Workers' Compensation.

"This arbitration award, and the cease and desist order, now frees up the PEP Officers to act full time, in-title, as Peace Officers," Amaral said, "It's a victory for the union and for the safety of the public at Hudson River Park."